Will Trump Accidentally Shut Down His Own Government?

When White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked on Wednesday to discuss ongoing government-funding negotiations, she implied that Donald Trump’s desired outcome was perfectly obvious. “We would like to get a budget deal done—a two-year budget deal, a clean budget deal, and then focus on negotiations . . . [to find] a permanent solution to DACA and responsible immigration reform,” she said, adding, “We’ve said that many times before. Our position has not changed.” Though that may be the official White House line, it’s been much harder for lawmakers to suss out the views of the president, who turned an immigration-reform meeting on its head last week when he momentarily appeared to side with Democrats, and who is notorious for moving the goalposts. And while Sanders’s proposal seemed clear-cut, just steps away, lawmakers on Capitol Hill remained at each others’ throats while they waited for Trump to weigh in.

As Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadowstold Politico, at present there are “enough noes and undecideds in the caucus . . . to stop [a bill] from passing.” Meadows and his co-complainants want specific promises before they throw their support behind a budget bill, and the North Carolina congressman all but begged Trump to chime in, saying the president’s word would motivate him to “consider” an about-face. “We need to know what the playcall is,” he said. “The speaker continues to say, well, we have the option to call an audible at the line—we need to know what end zone we’re aiming for.”

If House Republicans lose Meadows’s hard-line contingency, they’ll need cooperation from Democrats to pass a measure. But Minority Leader Chuck Schumertold reporters on Wednesday that there is “broad opposition” to the bill among Democrats, who have increasingly been motivated to oppose Trump as he tears into them on social media. Meanwhile, Meadows’s Senate counterparts seemed even more impatient. “I’m looking for something that President Trump supports, and he’s not yet indicated what measure he’s willing to sign,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnelltold CBS on Wednesday. “As soon as we figure out what he is for, then I would be convinced that we are not just spinning our wheels to this issue on the floor, but actually dealing with a bill that has a chance to become law and therefore solve the problem.”

Even if Trump decides what he wants (beyond funding for a big, beautiful wall), his edict will inevitably be met with doubt: after he vowed to work with Schumer and Nancy Pelosi on a DACA fix in September, he soon reversed course, tweeting that “the Democrats don’t really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military.” Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are reportedly having second thoughts about taking him at his word. “For bipartisanship, you have to stick to the same position for more than a couple hours,” Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy told Politico, echoing the sentiments of Senator Lindsey Graham, who noted, “You can’t fix this problem without the president,” but blamed Trump’s “180-degree” flip on “his staff.”

Ironically, the only person who can prevent a government shutdown is also the only person involved in negotiations who has no idea how Washington works—as Senator Dick Durbinnoted, “He’s never done a bipartisan deal as president.” And while the deal-maker-in-chief struggles to firm up his message, a government shutdown feels increasingly likely. Should a deal fail to materialize, Trump will likely bear the brunt of the blame. So naturally, White House officials are reportedly planning to pin the blame not just on Democrats, but on all of Congress.